Avidyne IFD-540 question

[0TreeLemur]

For those of you with an Avidyne IFD-540, I have a question regarding possible communications between Stratus and IFD.  Recently I figured out how to get the IFD to connect as a client to the Stratus.  At least the SSID for the Stratus shows up in the IFD wifi configuration, the wifi icon indicates strong signal, but it remains white not green. The white wifi icon suggests that the connection is not active.  What's more, there seem to be no options do display any of the ADS-B information (traffic/radar) on the IFD like I'd hoped to do.   Is that an IFD feature that requires an add-on?  If not, can anyone point me to a resource explaining how to do it?

Thx.

Fred

[midlifeflyer]

Which Stratus? 

Have you followed the instructions here?

[Ragsf15e]

4 hours ago, 0TreeLemur said:

For those of you with an Avidyne IFD-540, I have a question regarding possible communications between Stratus and IFD.  Recently I figured out how to get the IFD to connect as a client to the Stratus.  At least the SSID for the Stratus shows up in the IFD wifi configuration, the wifi icon indicates strong signal, but it remains white not green. The white wifi icon suggests that the connection is not active.  What's more, there seem to be no options do display any of the ADS-B information (traffic/radar) on the IFD like I'd hoped to do.   Is that an IFD feature that requires an add-on?  If not, can anyone point me to a resource explaining how to do it?

Thx.

Fred

I’m pretty sure you cannot display “adsb in” information from your portable on your ifd, only on your ipad.  You need a certified/mounted adsb in to display on the ifd.  If you look at the yellow box at the bottom of the slides @midlifeflyer linked, you’ll see that notification.

[0TreeLemur]

12 minutes ago, Ragsf15e said:

I’m pretty sure you cannot display “adsb in” information from your portable on your ifd, only on your ipad.  You need a certified/mounted adsb in to display on the ifd.  If you look at the yellow box at the bottom of the slides @midlifeflyer linked, you’ll see that notification.

Aha.  That little ol' yellow box explains it and kind of pees on my campfire.   My iPad already gets position info from a plug-in Garmin GPS dongle (the only Garmin gear in my a/c btw.)  Drat.  I see no need to connecting anything wifi to my iPad.   I run Foreflight all the time.

It's too bad the Avidyne Skynav Pro is so darned expensive.  

Ok.  I appreciate the input.   I'll lower my expectations.

 

[LANCECASPER]

15 hours ago, Ragsf15e said:

I’m pretty sure you cannot display “adsb in” information from your portable on your ifd, only on your ipad.  You need a certified/mounted adsb in to display on the ifd.  If you look at the yellow box at the bottom of the slides @midlifeflyer linked, you’ll see that notification.

I also never thought I’d see the day where ADSB-in data would be allowed on a certified panel device, but 10.3.1.2 Software allows it.

On the link below, look at the 4th point under “interfaces”.

https://techsupport.avidyne.com/kb/article/781-dealer-article-ifd-5xx-4xx-software-update-10-3-1-2-update-instructional-video-for-loading/

 

[midlifeflyer]

1 minute ago, LANCECASPER said:

I also never thought I’d see the day where ADSB-in data would be allowed on a certified panel device, but 10.3.1.2 Software allows it.

On the link below, look at the 4th point under “interfaces”.

https://techsupport.avidyne.com/kb/article/781-dealer-article-ifd-5xx-4xx-software-update-10-3-1-2-update-instructional-video-for-loading/

 

? Do you mean from an external portable? ADS-B In data from Out/in units like the GTX345 have been available for as long as it's been around. 

[LANCECASPER]

1 minute ago, midlifeflyer said:

? Do you mean from an external portable? ADS-B In data from Out/in units like the GTX345 have been available for as long as it's been around. 

Sorry, yes i meant that I never thought I’d see where uncertified adsb-in data would be allowed to be displayed on a certified device.

[midlifeflyer]

37 minutes ago, LANCECASPER said:

Sorry, yes i meant that I never thought I’d see where uncertified adsb-in data would be allowed to be displayed on a certified device.

I have a feeling the bottom line is that (a) there is no difference in what is being furnished and (b) it's not navigation data, so the FAA is not quite as concerned as it might be otherwise. Might be more surprising that we can transfer a flight plan with airways from an EFB to a GNS 430/530. which don't read airways.

[EricJ]

4 hours ago, midlifeflyer said:

? Do you mean from an external portable? ADS-B In data from Out/in units like the GTX345 have been available for as long as it's been around. 

Yes, from an external portable.   My IFD540 gets UAT ADSB-in from an in-panel Freeflight Ranger, but I also have a dual-band stratux that feeds my tablets.    There's often differences between them due to different antenna locations and the fact that the stratux is dual-band.   When the update came out that allowed external inputs I looked into it and it's an either-or thing.   If I enabled it to take the dual-band info from the stratux I'd have to disable the Ranger;  apparently it can only have one source.    Since the antenna diversity is beneficial, since sometimes the IFD shows traffic that my tablets don't (and vice versa), I've just kept the status-quo with the Ranger feeding the IFD and the stratux feeding the tablets.

 

[Ragsf15e]

23 hours ago, 0TreeLemur said:

Aha.  That little ol' yellow box explains it and kind of pees on my campfire.   My iPad already gets position info from a plug-in Garmin GPS dongle (the only Garmin gear in my a/c btw.)  Drat.  I see no need to connecting anything wifi to my iPad.   I run Foreflight all the time.

It's too bad the Avidyne Skynav Pro is so darned expensive.  

Ok.  I appreciate the input.   I'll lower my expectations.

 

So I stand corrected, seems you can do it!

[0TreeLemur]

I think I see the problem.   Thanks to @LANCECASPER for including that link! 

My IFD-540 is running S/W Ver. 10.2.4.1

We took possession of this J in January.  After reading the Avidyne forums, I learned that the 10.3.0.2 release out at that time had some annoying features (e.g. re-tuning radios to Melbourne, FL each power cycle).

It seems that ver. 10.3.1.2 fixed that frequency problem.  Vers. 10.3.02  included other upgrades to allow display of ADS-B input from portable devices!  That's why I can't do what I want.   My unit needs a software upgrade.   Does this require a dealer or can a bloke with an engineering degree do it?

Thx to all.

Fred

[Fly Boomer]

7 minutes ago, 0TreeLemur said:

My unit needs a software upgrade.   Does this require a dealer or can a bloke with an engineering degree do it?

What kind of engineering degree?
 

[0TreeLemur]

33 minutes ago, Fly Boomer said:

What kind of engineering degree?
 

CE

Reading the docs, it does require an A&P sign off.

[Fly Boomer]

10 minutes ago, 0TreeLemur said:

CE

Reading the docs, it does require an A&P sign off.

Just kidding.

[EricJ]

2 hours ago, 0TreeLemur said:

CE

Reading the docs, it does require an A&P sign off.

It does require a sign-off, but it's not hard to do.   If you have an A&P willing to supervise and sign off it can be done just by following the update instructions.    Having an external power supply/GPU/whatever is a good idea, but other than that it's straightforward.

[chriscalandro]

I do it with a Sentry on my 440

 

[0TreeLemur]

Got this working today.  I can now display traffic from the Stratus on the IFD540, which is what I really wanted.  

One weird thing is, I can download a flight plan from the IDF to Foreflight, but when I upload a flight plan from the iPad to the IFD it doesn't work.   When I send the flight plan, a cyan dialog pops up in the lower right-hand side of the IFD saying something like "flight plan ready for upload".   I click on that, and viola!  Nothing happens.  No other warnings or symptoms.  

Thanks to all for contributing to the discussion!

[EricJ]

39 minutes ago, 0TreeLemur said:

Got this working today.  I can now display traffic from the Stratus on the IFD540, which is what I really wanted.  

One weird thing is, I can download a flight plan from the IDF to Foreflight, but when I upload a flight plan from the iPad to the IFD it doesn't work.   When I send the flight plan, a cyan dialog pops up in the lower right-hand side of the IFD saying something like "flight plan ready for upload".   I click on that, and viola!  Nothing happens.  No other warnings or symptoms.  

Thanks to all for contributing to the discussion!

If you're on Facebook, for whatever reason, there's a group called Avidyne Pilots Club, that is really good for support and the Avidyne support staff participates there regularly.   Questions like that tend to get answered pretty quickly from those guys.    It's pretty impressive.

[Mooney in Oz]

1 hour ago, 0TreeLemur said:

One weird thing is, I can download a flight plan from the IDF to Foreflight, but when I upload a flight plan from the iPad to the IFD it doesn't work.   When I send the flight plan, a cyan dialog pops up in the lower right-hand side of the IFD saying something like "flight plan ready for upload".   I click on that, and viola!  Nothing happens.  No other warnings or symptoms.  

Firstly, go to your iPad wifi settings and ensure connection has been achieved with your IFD. You should see your IFD’s identification starting with M and numbers plus a ✅.

On the IFD, tap the bottom ‘Setup’ tab then look for ‘Connectivity’ and tap. Ensure WiFi is selected to ‘On’. Tap ‘Devices’ then you should see your iPad name. If this is your first connection attempt, you will probably see ‘Blocked’ next to your iPad’s name. This is just a default setting for the first connection. Tap ‘Blocked’ and you will see two other choices appear, namely ‘Once’ and ‘Always’. Tap ‘Always’.  Go to your iPad then send the flight plan again. You should receive a dialogue on the IFD indicating your flight plan is received. Press the FMS button then tap the bottom ‘Route’ tab and you should see your flight plan. Ensure the blue border is surrounding your flight plan then tap ‘Activate’ from the left and viola, you are there.

A few gotchas -

As you’ve already experienced, if ‘Flight plan ready for upload’ appears immediately in a split second, it really isn’t ready and indicates a problem. For a successful flight plan transfer there is normally a couple of seconds of WiFi delay. I think this is a bug in the system.

At times and unbeknown to you, when you attempt to transfer a flight plan the IFD will for some reason default back to ‘Never’ resulting in the flight plan transfer failing as you’ve already experienced.  Just go back into the ‘Connectivity’ settings and reselect ‘Always’.  This does not happen often and is a simple remedy.

If you have two IFD’s and they are set to operate together, only configure one for flight plan transfer.

Let us know how you go.

 

[0TreeLemur]

16 hours ago, Mooney in Oz said:

if ‘Flight plan ready for upload’ appears immediately in a split second, it really isn’t ready and indicates a problem. For a successful flight plan transfer there is normally a couple of seconds of WiFi delay.

Configured as you suggested.  When uploading a flt plan from iPad to IFD, it does take a few seconds for the "ready to upload" annunciation.  After dismissing, the flight plan never arrives.  I didn't notice, is there a required LSK press to accept the upload?

[Mooney in Oz]

8 hours ago, 0TreeLemur said:

Configured as you suggested.  When uploading a flt plan from iPad to IFD, it does take a few seconds for the "ready to upload" annunciation.  After dismissing, the flight plan never arrives.  I didn't notice, is there a required LSK press to accept the upload?

No, there is no required LSK to press.

If the IFD was successful in communicating with your iPad and you selected ‘Always’ under ‘Devices’ then the flight plan should appear after you press the FMS button then tap the bottom Route tab. The flight plan should be listed within the Route tab along with previously entered flight plans.

If you have many previous flight plans listed, it is easy for the plan you are looking for to be missed amongst the others, so take your time when searching.

If it still does not work then you might need to contact Avidyne tech support as per Eric’s suggestion or via their website. They are very helpful.

[0TreeLemur]

15 hours ago, Mooney in Oz said:

the flight plan should appear after you press the FMS button then tap the bottom Route tab

Thanks Vic.  I did not look under the Route tab. 

Fred

[Mooney in Oz]

On 9/5/2023 at 1:21 AM, 0TreeLemur said:

Thanks Vic.  I did not look under the Route tab. 

Fred

No worries Fred. One more minor gotcha is when you’re in the Route section, ensure the blue border surrounds the correct flight plan then tap ‘Activate’ below the left data blocks.